There are currently many types of voting systems at use in polling places. One which is gaining favor is a paper ballot on which voters mark their choices in defined areas using a pen or pencil. The marked ballots are then fed into a scanning system which uses optical scanning techniques to detect the marks and tally the votes. These optically scanned ballots have a number of advantages over mechanical or electronic voting machines since the set up requires only delivering the properly printed ballot to the polling site; the tallying can be done by scanning equipment located either, at the site or at a central location; and in the event of a recount, the original ballot which displays the voter's intent in human readable form is available for inspection.
To encourage voter participation, there is a need for a simple way to provide voting for the handicapped, the infirm and others who can not easily get to the polling sites. In addition, there is a desire to increase the number of polling sites and reduce the costs of elections. Optically scanned ballots can help accomplish these objectives because the same printed ballot can be used for off-site voting (such as by mail-in absentees) and at large numbers of polling stations since only an inexpensive writing surface is needed to cast a vote.
For these and other reasons, optically scanned paper ballots are commonly used for political as well as other types of elections. These ballots are simply sheets of paper (or cards) on which are printed the candidate choices, whether it is names of individuals contending for an office or alternative answers to proposals or propositions. They often also contain some printed information or instructions, but their principal feature is that in proximity to each candidate choice there is a predefined area (“marking area”) for the voter to fill in. It is this general area which is scanned by commercially available optical scanning equipment, and if the area is marked, the scanner recognizes a vote. These scanable ballots are generally simple to design, cheap to produce, and the optical scanning equipment can easily and rapidly tally the results.
Notwithstanding their general simplicity and wide-spread use, the currently available ballots have a number of shortcomings. The mark made by the voter must of course be sufficient to be detected by the scanner. In political elections the legal objective is to determine the intent of the voter, and to this end most scanning equipment is adapted to reject ballots which contain unclear or insufficient markings. If a ballot is rejected by the scanner, the voting authority has to decide whether to review the rejected ballot manually or to disregard the vote on that ballot.
In an attempt to run an efficient and accurate election, a number of rules are established for ballots which are to be optically scanned. Examples of some common rules are: the area to be marked must be completely filled-in; the mark must be sufficiently dark; and no more than the permitted number of alternative marking areas may be filled-in.
In some cases the design of the ballot is confusing, leading voters to mark areas not indicative of their intended choice, sometimes resulting in valid votes for unintended candidates, but most often when voters fail to abide by the rules, the marks are not recognized as votes at all, leading to the scanning equipment finding “no vote.”
An example of a traditional ballot 1 is shown in FIG. 1. Marking areas 11 are usually areas defined by an oval or small rectangle, often called bubbles. The voter is supposed to select one such area and fill it in with a standard pencil or pen. However, voters often incorrectly place a circle 12 around the marking area or underline a candidate's name 13 as shown. When read by the scanner no sufficient mark is found in the scanning zone, which includes all marking areas, and the result is recorded as no vote for that contest. This is tallied as an “undervote.” In other cases, instead of blackening the marking area 11, some voters place an “X”, shown as 14, across the area. These mis-marked marking areas are also often tallied as undervotes because the “X” does not fill the predefined marking area sufficiently to be detected by the scanner (although in some cases the “X” may leave a mark sufficient to be detected).
The scanning equipment is programmed to look for marks in all of the possible marking areas 11; it does not generally look for marks outside of the marking area but some scanners, such as one disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,479,194 (issued to Fogg, et al on Oct. 23, 1984) do detect the known printing outside the predefined marking areas 11 to calculate the location to be scanned for user marks. Sometimes these extra-area marks are intended by the voter be a vote. These are known as “renegade” marks or bubbles, and often occur when a voter tries to literally follow the instruction “blacken the area next to your choice,” but places the mark next to the candidate's name and not in the predefined marking area. These renegade marks are common in United States presidential elections where some states list both the presidential and vice presidential candidate separately, but provide only a single marking area II for the combination of the two. Some voters erroneously insert an extraneous mark (or even two marks), shown as 15, rather than simply filling in the proper area. Ballots with these renegade marks are most often tallied as undervotes by the optical scanner because no mark is placed in a proper marking area 11 for the presidential/vice presidential contest, and hence no mark is found in the predefined marking area for that contest.
When voters realize that they have made a mistake, they should surrender the defective ballot and obtain a substitute, but often they try to correct the error by erasure of the first marking area 11 and placing a second mark in an alternative marking area 11. A resulting smudge is most often detected by the scanner and their intended vote is also detected. The consequence is votes for both alternatives (an “overvote”) and a disqualified ballot. Other voters try to correct errors by crossing out their “incorrect” mark, with an “X” 16. This has the effect of creating an overvote when the ballot is also marked in the “correct” marking area. Expecting that the ballots will be read by humans who will interpret their comments, voters will make extraneous marks outside the predefined marking area, such as an “X” over the candidate's name or notations such as “wrong,” or “disregard this” 17.
The existence of improperly completed ballots, no matter what the underlying cause, means that many voters are disenfranchised because their mark is not properly interpreted by the scanner. Further, if the voting authority undertakes a manual review of these undervote and overvote ballots, it is unclear what standard can be used to determine voter intent. This causes expense, time, and confusion, and may put in doubt the validity of the election.
Some voting authorities have installed scanning equipment at the polling place. The purpose is to let the voter insert the completed ballot into the scanning equipment and, if an overvote or undervote is detected, reject the ballot and let the voter re-vote to correct the error. This of course, adds significant time and expense to the voting process since it requires that each ballot be passed through an expensive scanner.
No matter how the voting authority deals with ballots rejected by the scanner, existing ballots contain extraneous marks because voters think that marks which they write on the ballot will be seen by the “counters.”
It is the object of the present invention to provide a ballot which is immune to extraneous markings, whether intentional or unintentional.
It is a further object of this invention to provide the voter with immediate feedback that a mark within the predefined marking area is preferred, so that the voter has an incentive to fully darken that marking area.
It is a still further object of this invention to provide the voter with immediate feedback that a presumptively valid mark has been made, so that the voter has no incentive to intentionally try to create an improper mark.
Various other features of the present invention will become obvious in light of this disclosure.